FENS2022 Poster from metaBIO researchers!

Hi, this is the poster presented by Dr. Bruno Mota¹ and Dr. Yujiang Wang² at FENS2022 in Paris.

Abstract:

The mammalian cerebral cortex is probably one of the most complex structures ever studied by science. At first glance, any attempt to express its diversity, or significant features thereof, from universal principles, would seem doomed to failure. Indeed, there are many ways of comparing the morphological features of cerebral cortices. In what follows, working from first principles, we will express cortical morphology using a more natural set of variables across length scales, rather than across spatial position. We will introduce an algorithm for ‘melting’ cortical shape that erases structural features smaller than a set scale while maintaning surface self-avoidance and topological structure, and show that this process occurs in a universal self-similar manner. Using this new framework, we will finally show that the morphology of all cerebral cortices analyzed so far, across both mammalian species and individuals, are approximations of a single, universal fractal shape; and that the main distinction between different cortical shapes is the range of scales at which this approximation remains valid. This universal description of the cortical shape is at the same time mechanistically insightful and in full agreement with empirical data across species and individuals. Prospectively, we hope this new framework for expressing and analyzing cortical morphology, besides revealing a hitherto hidden regularity of nature, can become a powerful tool to characterize and compare cortices of different species and individuals, across development and aging, and across health and disease.

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